Days of the week trivia: 46 unknown facts about Saturday

Saturday is the first day of the weekend. Every week we look forward to it and to everything it means!

So let’s dive into some trivia and facts about Saturday!

1. Saturday is the day of the week between Friday and Sunday
2. The Romans named Saturday Sāturni diēs (“Saturn’s Day”) no later than the 2nd century for the planet Saturn, which controlled the first hour of that day, according to Vettius Valens
3. The day’s name was introduced into West Germanic languages and is recorded in the Low German languages
4. Such as Middle Low German sater(s)dach, Middle Dutch saterdag (Modern Dutch zaterdag) and Old English Sætern(es)dæġ and Sæterdæg
5. The day was also referred to as “Sæternes dæġe” in an Old English translation of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People
6. In Old English, Saturday was also known as sunnanæfen
7. Between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD, the Roman Empire gradually replaced the eight-day Roman nundinal cycle with the seven-day week
8. The astrological order of the days was explained by Vettius Valens and Dio Cassius
9. According to these authors, it was a principle of astrology that the heavenly bodies presided, in succession, over the hours of the day
10. The association of the weekdays with the respective deities is thus indirect, the days are named for the planets, which were in turn named for the deities
11. The Germanic peoples adapted the system introduced by the Romans but glossed their indigenous gods over the Roman deities in a process known as interpretatio germanica
12. In the case of Saturday, however, the Roman name was borrowed directly by West Germanic peoples
13. Apparently because none of the Germanic gods were considered to be counterparts of the Roman god Saturn
14. Otherwise Old Norse and Old High German did not borrow the name of the Roman god
15. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, Saturdays are days on which the Theotokos (Mother of God) and All Saints are commemorated
16. And the day on which prayers for the dead are especially offered, in remembrance that it was on a Saturday that Jesus lay dead in the tomb
17. The Octoechos contains hymns on these themes, arranged in an eight-week cycle, that are chanted on Saturdays throughout the year
18. At the end of services on Saturday, the dismissal begins with the words: “May Christ our True God, through the intercessions of his most-pure Mother, of the holy, glorious and right victorious Martyrs, of our reverend and God-bearing Fathers”
19. For the Orthodox, Saturday, with the sole exception of Holy Saturday, is never a strict fast day
20. When a Saturday falls during one of the fasting seasons (Great Lent, Nativity Fast, Apostles’ Fast, Dormition Fast) the fasting rules are always lessened to an extent
21. The Great Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross and the Beheading of St. John the Baptist are normally observed as strict fast days
22. But if they fall on a Saturday or Sunday, the fast is lessened
23. Today, Saturday is officially called Samstag in all German-speaking countries
24. But there it has two names in modern Standard German
25. Samstag is always used in Austria, Liechtenstein, and the German-speaking part of Switzerland, and generally used in southern and western Germany
26. It derives from Old High German sambaztac
27. Which itself derives from Greek Σάββατο
28. And this Greek word derives from Hebrew, Shabbat
29. However, the current German word for Sabbath is Sabbat
30. The second name for Saturday in German is Sonnabend, which derives from Old High German sunnunaband
31. It is closely related to the Old English word sunnanæfen
32. It means literally “Sun eve”, i.e., “The day before Sunday”
33. Sonnabend is generally used in northern and eastern Germany, and was also the official name for Saturday in East Germany
34. In West Frisian there are also two words for Saturday
35. In Wood Frisian it is saterdei, and in Clay Frisian it is sneon, derived from snjoen, a combination of Old Frisian sunne, meaning sun and joen, meaning eve
36. In the Westphalian dialects of Low Saxon, in East Frisian Low Saxon and in the Saterland Frisian language, Saturday is called Satertag, also akin to Dutch Zaterdag
37. Which has the same linguistic roots as the English word Saturday
38. It was formerly thought that the English name referred to a deity named Sætere who was venerated by the pre-Christian peoples of north-western Germany
39. Some of whom were the ancestors of the Anglo-Saxons
40. Sætere was identified as either a god associated with the harvest of possible Slav origin
41. Or another name for Loki,a complex deity associated with both good and evil
42. This latter suggestion may be due to Jacob Grimm
43. However, modern dictionaries derive the name from Saturn
44. The international standard ISO 8601 sets Saturday as the sixth day of the week
45. The three Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) regard Saturday as the seventh day of the week
46. As a result, many refused the ISO 8601 standards and continue to use Saturday as their seventh day